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Research vs. Researches

Dear teachers!

I'm not quite sure whether there's a difference in use or meaning between the following words: (1) research, and (2) researches. I always thought that research is uncountable on principle, but some recent encounters with the word made me wonder if I'm right..

Thanks a lot in advance!

Sebastian

PS

Wouldn't it be a good idea if there was a 'prefix' standing for vocabulary questions (in addition to grammar and others) next to the title when you start a new thread

Re: Research vs. Researches

research [uncountable] also researches formal (Longman)
1 serious study of a subject, in order to discover new facts or test new ideas
research into/on
research into the causes of cancer
scientific/medical/historical etc research
a research team
do/conduct/undertake research
I'm still doing research for my thesis.
Gould was helped in his researches by local naturalists.

2 the activity of finding information about something that you are interested in or need to know about:
It's a good idea to do some research before you buy a house.

researches plural noun (Cambridge)
His researches (= research) in the field of disease prevention produced unexpected results.

Re: Research vs. Researches

Originally Posted by seba_870701

Wouldn't it be a good idea if there was a 'prefix' standing for vocabulary questions (in addition to grammar and others) next to the title when you start a new thread

In an ideal world maybe, where students were all grammarians.
I can see two immediate problems:
- Many students would not know if their question related to lexis or syntax or semantics, or pragmatics, or ...
- Many (if not most) questions do not fit into neat categories like this.

Re: Research vs. Researches

First of all, thank you for the clarification of use of the words in question (see topic)! I'll remain faithful to singular, uncountable research.

Originally Posted by Tdol

Yes, it would; I'll see if it can be arranged.

BTW, I'm no fan of 'researches' and never use it.

Originally Posted by Red5

Good idea! Done

Secondly, well done, moderators!
I'm sure it'll help many users to classify their questions more accurately, and consequently will also help the teachers to answer them more quickly!

Originally Posted by Raymott

In an ideal world maybe, where students were all grammarians.
I can see two immediate problems:
- Many students would not know if their question related to lexis or syntax or semantics, or pragmatics, or ...
- Many (if not most) questions do not fit into neat categories like this.

But sure, we could have a trial and see if chaos results

By the way, I think your question would come under "morphology".

Raymott, I appreciate your contribution, but your reasoning went slightly too far Try starting a new thread in Ask a Teacher section and you'll see what I meant by the "prefix" in my original post. Simply, when you create a thread, you can mark it with a prefix determining the type of the question you're about to post. The categories to choose from are as follows:
essay, grammar, CV, general, idiom, support, and vocabulary (the last one added very recently)
As you see, one doesn't necessarily have to be a linguist to pick the one that suits most to his/her question